The past year has proven to be a challenge for Lexi Mangione — one of the captains of her soccer team who is helping the Wesley Chapel Wildcats reach another victorious season.
“I like that it’s a team sport and not everything is really on you because before I did this, I did gymnastics and everything was just you,” she told Spectrum Sports 360’s Katya Guillaume.
She said she’s always been a team player. In her first two years on the team, she actually sat on the bench, but says she didn’t let that discourage her from stepping up.
“For me, I just liked to play the sport, so even if I was just practicing and getting better with these girls, it wasn’t as important to me to get the game time,” she said.
Along with soccer, Lexi said what has been important to her are the items inside a storage unit, and their significance.
“This storage unit is a foster closet that takes donations to help out foster families,” she said.
Giving back to her community is close to her heart, especially the foster community because just a year and a half ago, her family opened their doors to foster kids — a new chapter in life that Lexi had to adjust to.
“It’s fun for me,” she said. “I’ve always been the youngest sibling and I’ve always wanted to be an older sister.
The Mangione’s had two daughters, but since they started this new chapter, their family has fostered almost 30 children.
The new duties that come with fostering do come with some challenges for Lexi.
“Especially when you create a bond for the kid and your loving for them and your caring for them when their parents are not able to, or their parents are getting better, you really form a connection with these babies or these teens or however old they are are,” she said. “You learn to love them and they can just leave, which is really hard.”
Volunteering for the Caterpillars to Butterflies organization, Lexi helps collect items for foster kids not just in her home but throughout the county, and she also got her team involved as well.
“We’ve brought diapers and wipes … and then we made a donation to that foster closet so that we were able to give back to the foster community that way,” she said.
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